How to change the drive letter of a USB drive in Windows 10 & 11

This tutorial will show you step by step how to change the drive letter of a USB drive in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

You can assign a permanent drive letter to your external hard drive or USB flash drive by using a tool that's already built-into Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Drive letters

If you're using multiple USB drives, you've probably noticed that the drive letter can be different each time you connect a USB drive to your PC.

Microsoft Windows will automatically assign a drive letter to any USB drive you connect to your PC.

And because Microsoft Windows assigns a drive letter automatically, it may cause problems with some software, like, for example, backup software.

Backup software requires the same drive letter every time you connect the USB drive you use for backups to your PC.

So if you're using software that requires the same drive letter every time you plug in a USB drive, you will have to assign a permanent (static) drive letter to your USB drive.

To change a drive letter of a USB drive, you can use a tool called “Disk Management”, and this tool is already built-into Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11.

How to change the drive letter of a USB drive in Windows 10 and 11

1. Insert the USB drive into your PC.

2. Open the Windows Disk Management tool. You can open the Disk Management tool by right-clicking on the start menu button, and then click on Disk Management

Or you can also press the Windows + R keys on your keyboard, type diskmgmt.msc, and then click on the OK button.

3. Right-click on the drive you want to change the drive letter from, and then click on Change Drive Letter and Paths.

The Change Drive Letter and Paths option in Windows Disk Management

A “Change Drive Letter and Paths” window will appear.

4. Click on the Change button.

Change Drive Letter and Paths window in Windows Disk Management

A “Change Drive Letter or Path” window will appear.

5. At Assign the following drive letter, you click on the selection menu button and select a drive letter between M and Z, because Microsoft Windows rarely uses these drive letters.

6. When you're done, you click on OK.

Select a drive letter for a USB drive in Windows Disk Management

Now you will get the following warning; Some programs that rely on drive letters might not run correctly. Do you want to continue?.

7. Click on Yes.

The new drive letter is now assigned to the USB drive.

The USB drive will, from now on, always get the same drive letter when you connect it to your PC.

8. You can now close Disk Management.